The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has again called on El Salvador to keep its Bitcoin holdings unchanged.

In a statement released on May 27, the IMF said government-owned wallets must not increase their BTC reserves and also urged the country to fully exit its role in the Chivo wallet by the end of July.

According to the global financial body:

“Efforts will continue to ensure that the total amount of Bitcoin held across all government-owned wallets remains unchanged, consistent with program commitments, while also securing the unwinding of the public sector’s participation in the Chivo wallet by end-July.”

This directive follows a staff-level agreement that would unlock $120 million for El Salvador as part of a $1.4 billion loan deal.

However, the final approval still depends on the IMF executive board and whether the country meets its policy commitments.

El Salvador first signed the financing arrangement in December 2024, and one key condition was to reduce direct state involvement in Bitcoin-related activities.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin embrace

Despite this, the Central American country has aggressively acquired more Bitcoin over the past few months.

For context, the government added at least eight more BTC to its coffers in the past week alone and has shown no sign of slowing down.

El Salvador’s national Bitcoin office confirmed the country now holds nearly 6,190 BTC. At current prices, this stash is worth over $674 million and has generated unrealized profits of more than $200 million.

President Nayib Bukele, the principal architect of El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin, has remained firm on the policy.

He has dismissed external pressure and consistently emphasized the economic gains achieved under his administration’s BTC-first approach.

Stacy Herbert, who leads the Bitcoin office, reinforced this stance. She said the government is actively shaping the legal and financial infrastructure needed to attract capital by adopting the top crypto.

She stated:

“We are working to build the robust capital markets needed for an economic miracle to happen: with both our proposed legislation to attract international capital as well as our work establishing the world’s first Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and encouraging a government policy of aggressive bitcoin accumulation.”

Mentioned in this article

The German financial supervisory authority BaFin said it identified “serious deficiencies” in Ethena’s USDe token, which the company calls a synthetic dollar, and forbade the issuer from offering it to the public with immediate effect.

The European Union’s Market in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulations for issuers of stablecoins, tokens whose value is tied to another asset, took effect on June 30 last year. Ethena GmbH has been issuing USDe since June 28, according to BaFin. Companies were allowed to continue issuing their tokens while applying for a MiCA license, unless ordered to stop.

“During the ongoing licensing process, BaFin has identified, among other things, serious deficiencies in the bank’s business organization and violations of MiCAR requirements, such as those regarding asset reserves and compliance with capital requirements,” the regulator said.

USDe counts as an asset-referenced token because it is “a crypto asset whose value stability is to be maintained by reference to other assets, rights, or currencies,” BaFin said.

Ethena is the yield-generating protocol that markets the $5.4 billion token as a “synthetic dollar” with its price anchored at $1. The token uses cryptocurrencies including bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) as backing assets, pairing them with an equal value of short perpetual futures positions on various exchanges.

The strategy generates income for the protocol when perpetual funding rates are positive and passes on some of the income as yield to those who stake USDe (sUSDe). The protocol also issues the USDtb stablecoin, backed by BlackRock’s tokenized Treasury bill fund.

“BaFin also has reasonable grounds to suspect that Ethena GmbH is publicly offering securities in Germany in the form of ‘sUSDe’ tokens of Ethena OpCo. Ltd. without the required securities prospectus,” the regulator said.

Ethena said on X that it will “continue to evaluate alternative frameworks,” after being notified that the “application under the MiCAR regulatory framework will not be approved.”

Ethena’s governance token, ENA, had dropped 6.5% in the past 24 hours, extending losses following the announcement, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Krisztian Sandor contributed to this article.

UPDATE (March 21, 16:37 UTC): Adds MiCA in second paragraph, regulator quote in third, USDe explanation starting in fifth.